


Five Times Libby Saw Hurley (and one time she didn't)

by redeem147



Category: Lost
Genre: Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:52:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redeem147/pseuds/redeem147
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretty much what the title says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Libby Saw Hurley (and one time she didn't)

“Stop here.”

The driver didn’t raise an eyebrow, though he probably wanted to. She could eat at any restaurant in town. Have caviar for lunch. But she’d always had a taste for fast food. She tried to keep her predilection from her husband, because he just wouldn’t understand.

Today it was a craving for chicken, hot and deep fried, with seven special spices.

The young man behind Mr. Cluck’s counter asked, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“The three piece special, please,” she looked at his name tag, “Hugo.”

He smiled. Maybe most customers didn’t read the tag. He was a big fellow, but his smile glowed. Cute. Definitely cute.

He took her money, gave her the chicken, and called, “Next.”

*****

Her husband was in the cabin lying down. The doctors weren’t optimistic. She tried to ignore what they’d said. Ignore the impossibility of being without him.

She raised her face to drink in the sun. The cerulean sky met the turquoise ocean as the deck of the Elizabeth rocked beneath her. This was their place of peace.

She looked out towards the beach where two figures stood, a man and a woman. The woman sat down and the man walked towards the water, shoes in his hand. Something about him seemed familiar. She picked up the binoculars and took a closer look.

It was the young man from the chicken place; she was almost sure of it. When she saw him smile she knew it. The woman was older. Aunt, maybe? Mother? Friend?

Her husband started coughing and she put down the binoculars to check on him. She longed, for an instant, to have a simple life like the couple on the beach.

*****

Everything was hazy, wrapped in cotton wool. She was vaguely aware of the way the woman looked in the mirror, hair unbleached, dark rings under her dead eyes. Sleepwalking.

There was a familiar face at Santa Rosa. Or maybe she was imagining him. Holding on to something from her past. He didn’t smile anymore.

After all, what would he be doing here? He was the one with the uncomplicated life, selling chicken.

The nurse gave her a little paper cup of pills. Deep inside, a voice laughed that pills were the reason she was here in the first place.

She swallowed them down, and the voice quieted again.

*****

It was one of her good days. She had decided to go back to university, and her first year psych notes lay scattered on the table.

Bored with studying, she flipped on the television. Channel after channel, nothing caught her eye, so she left it on CNN and picked up her text book again.

Until she glanced up and saw his face. He was beaming.

He’d won the lottery. He was going to take the money and help his family. Maybe travel.

She felt oddly sad for him. She knew from bitter experience that money wasn’t the solution to everything, not really. She hoped he wouldn’t find it more a curse than a blessing.

*****

He was walking down the narrow aisle of the plane towards her section, probably heading for the bathroom. People were giving him that look, the ‘we’re thinner than you, we’re better than you’ look. If they only knew.

She almost grabbed his hand when he walked by and said hello. But what was she to him, really? He glanced at her as he passed with no recognition. A few minutes later he walked back in the other direction.

Then the plane fell out of the sky.

*****

She dug through the wreckage, almost frantic. Saw long curly hair sticking out from behind an upturned seat. “Hugo?” But the body wasn’t his.

“Hey!” The small, dark-haired woman pulled at her arm. “They’re toast. Help me with this guy. He’s still breathing.”

She hadn’t found him. He was probably in the ocean, or lying broken against a rock.

She felt she’d lost something profound. She wasn’t sure what it was.


End file.
